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Abercrombie & Fitch

From Thursday to Friday, Abecrombie managed to become another statistic. Neighboring stores say that without explanation or warning, a "fire sale" took place, with reductions up to 80%. By Saturday the store was stripped naked, like much of their cheap, soft-porn advertising. This is one store I'm personally delighted to see disappear. According to other store owners, Abecrombie couldn't manage their store or their teenage employees, at all. There were constant complaints about loud music blaring from the store into the street, and the teens were apparently snatching quite a bit of merchandise for themselves. I look forward to their replacement, whatever it may be.

– Written by Jennifer Pfaff

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26 responses to “Abercrombie & Fitch”

  1. jean

    which teens did the snatching? OUR teens???…shame on us.

  2. Jenn

    Apparently some who worked there (no wonder such a high turn-over), and also some off the street were the culprits. The one and only time I stepped foot in the store (to purchase a gift for a teen Abecrombie fan) I had to wait several minutes before somebody from the back room finally showed up to ask what I needed (I could hear a bunch of kid employees in the back socializing). If I had come there to snatch something, it would have been very fast and easy.

  3. Fiona

    Let’s hope that whoever goes in there after Abercrombie and Fitch, does NOT f………….. the builidng up like other notable examples of “progress”.

    Need reminding? … look at the gun turret (aka Apple), the greenhouse effect (aka Smith and Hawken), the stucco yucco (aka Calico Corners) and the brick bunker monstrosity (aka Fidelity something). Plenty of examples how “progress” can really f…. our more interesting buildings.

    There are of course fine examples of property owners that have not f……. up their buildings. The owners of the George Farrell house on Chapin want one of the finest buidings in Burlingame preserved – thank you to them.

    Moi feel strongly about this stuff? You are f…………. right I do!

  4. Jenn

    Yes, the latest blunder (Smith and Hawkin) is really a disappointment. They could write a book on how to take a lovely building and make the worst of it. There is nothing redeeming about white vinyl doors and windows; it’s cold and generic. I thought plants were GREEN! in Los Gatos, Smith Hawkin has one of the most lovely storefronts in the area. What do they do right, that we do wrong?? More regulation, perhaps? It works for them, apparently.

  5. Fiona

    Don’t believe A&F are leaving for theft reasons although the store was designed to make theft easy and almost invitied you to steal one of their overpriced items. Having two teenage daughters, even they thought they were too expensive!

    Knowing some of the wonderful teenagers working there I would be surprised if that could be a major reason for A&F shipping out of “the jewel on the peninsula”.

    It is probably the demographics – there are alot of babies (and their parents) who are the wrong age group for Abercrombie. Wonder what A&F say was the reason for their departure?

    The more interesting aspect to me is that a “chain” store failed. This does not happen often in Burlingame although of course Woolworths left years ago.

    Oh Woolworths – Burlingame went down hill after that!

  6. Jenn

    Another adjacent store offered an additional explanation, that A & F’s “loyal” but fickle teen following had moved on to the more conservative J. Crew down the street. As always, fashion goes from one extreme to the other……

  7. KRN

    Many BHS students who work at A&F are being moved to the Hillsdale Mall store. It seems that A&F may be satisfied with its location at Hillsdale and no longer needs to be on Burlingame Ave.

    The big question is was A&F ever on the Burlingame Ave to make a profit or was it for marketing? High School students are entrenched in A&F clothing and will go to the mall to get the items. Isn’t this the same path that Williams Sonoma took…. it didn’t want or need to operate two stores in a limited area?

    By the way…. don’t forget the discrimination (ethnic and sexual) suits against A&F. Do we really need a store that only hires “beautiful people of one color” to work on the sales floor? A former BHS male student was told by his 23 year old female A&F manager that he was required to purchase A&F shirts that were two sizes too small to wear on the sales floor. She told him that it would be a shame not to show off his muscular body in the store. This young man was shocked by the request and filed a disciplinary action with A&F corporate. He didn’t get an apology from the A&F supervisor, but rather an explanation that he misinterpreted the intent of his 23 year old manager.

    A&F has done enough damage to our children…. lets not forget the quasi-pornographic posters in the window or the sexually explicit catalogs complete with drink menus.

    What was it that A& F was selling again?

  8. Jenn

    That’s right, someone else mentioned the lawsuits. All the more reason I’m glad they are gone, and yes, they probably do better at the mall, with a captive audience, at least until J. Crew makes a bigger dent.

  9. jean

    KRN, you mentioned BHS students working at the store. Jenn mentioned the kids theft, lack of attention to customers. Are these the same kids? Obviously not supervised well, if at all, but theft is a pretty strong word. I do remember the William Sonoma move for competitive reasons, not for theft. I sure hope our kids know the difference between lack of management and crime, even if management provided the opportunity for sticky fingers.

  10. Rosaline

    Can a marketing person (Russ?) explain something to me about A&F. Why would a company who is aiming for the under 18 year olds produce a smutty catalogue that you have to be over 18 to subscribe to? Of course it was easy to obtain a copy for any age but their catalogues were nasty but of course to some they may have been artful. Some of their marketing was definitely in bad taste and some of their products had to be pulled because of bad taste!

    I would like to think that our teenagers were not the problem.

  11. Jenn

    It all gets back to mismanagement, as far as the teens go. I know a teenage girl who was friends with a few teens who worked there. It was so miserable that the responsible teens left. They never lasted longer than a few weeks. The others who stayed might have been contributing to the theft issues, as well as the Open Door Policy where Nobody Is Home. I agree with you about the smut, and cannot even imagine a single person finding them artful, except, A&F themselves, who needed an excuse for peddling junk to teens.

  12. KRN

    BHS kids did work at A&F. In fact it was quite popular because of the clothing discounts. As far as theft by OUR kids… I don’t know. The management at A&F were very young and bought into the corporate model of feel good and look good.

    As far as the marketing goes, A&F was using the standard sex and good times to go after today’s teens. Three years ago, PBS’s FRONTLINE produced “The Merchants of Cool,” a great documentary on how corporate America is controlling our teens. The producer of Merchants recently made a follow up entitled “The Persuaders.”

    A&F, the WB Network, BeBe, etc all use sex and the forbiddent to sell to our children becuase no one is around to tell them any different. A&F may be off Burlingame Ave. but its impact is alive and well in teen culture.

  13. joe baylock

    I was told by an employee of Williams & Sonoma at Stanford that they were hoping to return to the Avenue. This was 8 months ago and there hasn’t really been any movement in that direction…perhaps their Stanford neighbor, Smith & Hawken took their spot?

  14. rich grogan

    Are we forgetting something? For every student wearing the A&F sexually suggestive clothing there was a parent or parents that allowed their child/children to wear the clothing. This is, yet, another example of parents abdicating their responsibility and letting their children “do their own thing”?

    I am glad A&F is gone, but I find it hard to shoot messenger, so to speak.

  15. Annamarie

    I won’t miss the music at all…and I love most music!

  16. Pat Jensen

    I hated the music too… I think it is funny that A&F has a reputation for having “scandalous” catalogues, because most of their clothes are pretty plain and conservative… I have always thought of people who wear clothes from that store as sort of “preppy”…

    On another note, it is sad how many long time Burlingame businesses are leaving or downsizing: Sweat Treats and Sneak Preview, to name a few… There is nothing innately wrong with chain stores. However, when a little city begins to look like ever other city on the peninsula and we lose all the businesses that make us individual what more do we have???

  17. Jenn

    Funny you should mention the clothes being “preppy”. I’m not sure I’d use that word, because what I remember being preppy is kind of the Ivy Leaguish, not the low, low rise pants and several sizes too small t-shirts and tanks. However, there may be some truth to that, if one would use “gothic” as the other extreme. I love Morning Glory clothes, and they are much closer to that end of the spectrum. Probably you mean that they were not avant garde or anything unusual., and that is certainly a true statement. PLUS they were very pricey. This all adds up to why they needed to push the racey catalogs and posters. Why else would the teens be interested in their expensive wares. And now, the teens have moved on to the truly preppy J. Crew.!!

  18. Patrick Jensen

    I don’t know, I think I’m going to stick with “preppy”… I have always thought it to mean someone who wears expensive clothes that look nice (but not too nice)like: A & F, American Eagle, J Crew, Gap… You know a bottled up image that somehow the purchaser attains by spending $69.95 on a new pair of jeans that is made to look old…

    Also, I think Maureen at Morning Glory does a fantastic job, and she is a sweet person as well.

  19. Rosaline

    Patrick you are right there is nothing wrong with chainstores per se – if that is what people want – but the reason why we came to Burlingame 23 years ago was because it did not look like all the strip malls around, it had a main street and there was so much diversity in the stores. There should be more unusual interesting stores (remember Elecric Avenue?)and that is why I love Los Gatos!

  20. Jenn

    Wow $69.50 is probably a deal at A&F. I’ve heard the jeans (yes, artifically beaten up) ran $150-$200. I’ll stick with GAP on sale and will gladly beat up my own jeans, thank you~!

  21. jean

    there is someone around to tell our kids different…it is parents.

  22. Seamus

    I heard that an outlet of Anne Taylor is going in at A&F(The Loft).

  23. Jenn

    I heard that, but I also heard that a huge shoe store was going in…..I guess we’ll just have to be surprised! Does anyone remember when that lovely building was a fabric store? I spent my teens there picking out material to make colorful 70’s clothes. It was always a lovely building. I hope the new people don’t ruin it!

  24. Jim

    http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_2523536

    An article in the Times about the store closing which has “pissed” some of our younger residents. Last year there were 10 reported thefts at A&F compared to Gap (2) and J. Crew (1) but it seems the demographics were wrong and therefore the location was wrong.

    A&F did not return calls about why they are leaving and next week we will know who the new tenants will be.

    Maybe Saks would have been a better idea so many years ago! At least the music would have been quieter!

  25. Rosaline

    My daughter told me that “no-one shops at Abercrombie on Burlingame Avenue because they like to go to Hillsdale and other malls because there are additional shops for their age group.

    What the Gap and Lucky are chopped liver?!

  26. Rosaline

    Comment from John Horgan of the San Mateo Times:

    “WEB REMARKS — The demise of Abercrombie & Fitch in downtown Burlingame has generated 25 written comments as of Wednesday on the Web log of the activist Burlingame Voice.

    The Voice, at one time a printed newsletter that appeared on a fairly regular basis, is now primarily an Internet site devoted to what’s happening in the town.

    Interestingly, the remarks regarding the sudden closure of A&F are split pretty much down the middle. There is a rather surprising amount of animosity directed at the former outlet and the company itself.

    “Good riddance” seems to be the feeling of an awful lot of those responding electronically.”

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